The invention relates to a rolling machine of the type used for rolling mills to work and shape steel and other metals. A typical rolling machine has a driving mechanism with a driving shaft, a supporting and guiding mechanism with a supporting trunnion and exchangeable working rolls on which rolling tools are mounted.
Rolling machines of this kind are usually provided with two or three rolls firmly supported in a stand of the machine. The rolling machine usually has means for the rolls to be connected to stable, or fixed, compact shafts, such as stub shafts, of a driving mechanism. The driving mechanism may be a conventional power source, such as an electric motor and/or gear train. Tools of the desired shapes are clamped on the rolls. The installation of tools at the appropriate places on the rolls, and particularly their adjustment, exchange and replacement, is time consuming on conventional rolling machines. The typical rolling machine is thereby out of productive operation for considerable time during the down time necessary for adjustment, exchange and replacement of the rolls. Change of the rolling machine from one rolling program, having one kind of a rolling product, to another is thus substantially limited with conventional rolling machines. Another drawback with most conventional rolling machines is the requirement that each individual segment or element of the different tools must be installed at the correct location on the roll while the roll is in the rolling machine. The tools must also be removed from the working rolls individually and taken to the appropriate machine tool for repair and renovation.
Methods for exchange of tools simultaneously with the exchange of the working rolls have been tried. Known methods exchange the tools and rolls simultaneously, but require contemporaneous disassembly of the rolling machine to permit removal of several parts of the machine. The rolls are typically connected with heavy, fixed or compact shafts, such as drive shafts, which may be unitary with the rolls, which may be long, which may be journaled in inaccessable bearings, or enclosed by other parts, and which may be connected to complex gear trains. In addition, a shaft or shafts of the working rolls may be mounted in the frame of the rolling machine. Removal of the rolls from the machine, by prior methods, required a crane to life the rolls in a vertical direction with respect to the base of the machine, after first disassembling the rolls from the shafts, bearings, gear trains, frames and the like with which the rolls are associated. An exchange of working rolls by this method, requiring removal and return of the other machine parts, is time consuming and requires a large amount of labor so that a quick change of the rolling program, and a reduction of unproductive down time, is not possible.